"It is our duty to sing"

Date Issued:: 2006
Summary:: Great War veteran David Jones's poem about the war, In Parenthesis, has been attacked by literary critics Paul Fussell and Evelyn Cobley on the grounds that the poem, usually read as an instance of "literature of protest" against the war, indicates Jones's ideological complicity with the war through its extensive allusions to heroic Celtic myth, British literature, and Catholic liturgy. This thesis argues that Jones's intricate allusive network represents a mythopoetic method of endurance, a way of making order amidst the chaos of the Western Front. Jones's mythopoetic method, which I call allusive "seeing," serves as both a psychological defense mechanism against the war's strangeness and horror and a protest against the perception that because of the industrial, unheroic nature of the Great War, the soldiers who fought and died in it cannot be considered heroes.

Title:	"It is our duty to sing": a defense of the mythic method in David Jones's In parenthesis.	253 views 41 downloads
Name(s):	Snyder, Matthew J. Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
Type of Resource:	text
Genre:	Thesis
Issuance:	multipart monograph
Date Issued:	2006
Publisher:	Florida Atlantic University
Physical Form:	electronic electronic resource
Extent:	viii, 66 leaves.
Language(s):	English
Summary:	Great War veteran David Jones's poem about the war, In Parenthesis, has been attacked by literary critics Paul Fussell and Evelyn Cobley on the grounds that the poem, usually read as an instance of "literature of protest" against the war, indicates Jones's ideological complicity with the war through its extensive allusions to heroic Celtic myth, British literature, and Catholic liturgy. This thesis argues that Jones's intricate allusive network represents a mythopoetic method of endurance, a way of making order amidst the chaos of the Western Front. Jones's mythopoetic method, which I call allusive "seeing," serves as both a psychological defense mechanism against the war's strangeness and horror and a protest against the perception that because of the industrial, unheroic nature of the Great War, the soldiers who fought and died in it cannot be considered heroes.
Identifier:	315826205 (oclc), 11580 (digitool), FADT11580 (IID), fau:1314 (fedora)
Note(s):	by Matthew J. Snyder. Typescript (Photocopy). Thesis (B.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, Honors College, 2006. Bibliography: leaves 62-66. Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2006. Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Subject(s):	Jones, David, 1895-1974 Jones, David, 1895-1974 -- Views on war World War, 1914-1918 -- Great Britain -- Literature and the war War poetry, English -- History and criticism War and literature -- History and criticism
Held by:	FBoU FAUER
Persistent Link to This Record:	http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/11580
Use and Reproduction:	Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.
Host Institution:	FAU

In Collections

Honors Student Theses

Search In

You are here

In Collections